Shut Up

This post is directed at you (and you, and you…), a very non-specific “you.” It doesn’t point to one person in particular, it points to everyone who feels the need to use Facebook as a launch pad for their diatribes of hatemongering and assholery.

Those are words, you know.

The First Amendment grants freedom of speech, but we’ve apparently crossed the line from free speech to “being a jerk and using free speech.” I’ve seen more profanity-laced posts about politics, profanity-laced posts about life in general, hate, racism, and more hashtags than I saw in two years prior to this year.

So many hashtags.

#FedUp is the way I feel every time I see profanities. #FedUp is the way I feel every time someone hates on someone else because their views don’t match someone else’s views. #FedUp is the way I feel every time someone acts like they need to be an instrument of logic, yet their logic is so muddled and half-assed.

Do you know how it becomes half-assed? When you throw the f-bomb (a word I don’t use – no seriously, I don’t) around. When you use hateful language. When you hatemonger as compensation for your own shortcomings. When you just plain old believe your voice speaks for everyone.

Oh my goodness, SHUT UP! Just SHUT THE HELL UP!

Stop complaining, stop hatemongering, stop being a jerk about what pisses you off. Don’t like a politician’s views? Fine, that’s your opinion, but use the education you claim to have. Use your words effectively. Nothing has even been resolved with the middle finger and the f-bomb.

Would you like it if someone used the words you choose on you? Would you like your behavior turned around on you? I’ll clue you in: if you EVER spoke to me the way I see some of you (ok, many of you) speak on Facebook, you’d lose me as a friend. Because giving anyone a tenth of the disrespect I see on Facebook would never go over well in the real world.

As a society, we are too quick to hide behind our computer and phones when we voice our opinions. The same can be said for me right now. I’m hiding behind a computer to write this. Would I ever want to say any of this to a person’s face? Well, no. My given gift of writing is that, a gift. It’s a gift I use effectively. I can craft something to my very liking, and I can plan my thoughts coherently. So instead of being uncouth and just saying the first thing on my mind to the people who aggravate me the most on Facebook, the very people I try to ignore on a daily basis, I can think of the right words for how I feel. I don’t have to worry about the backlash of using the wrong words.

When Nancy Reagan passed away a few months ago, I proposed that we stop all the political infighting for a day, ONE DAY, to mourn her passing. I saw none of that. I saw none of the unity that came from her husband’s death. It’s an election year (just as it was when he passed away), but no one wanted to unite and mourn. They wanted to argue. And that’s what I saw.

And it’s not just politics that aggravate me. I do not discuss politics based on the fact that I do not feel like having any opinion I may have torn to shreds because it isn’t the same as my friends’ beliefs. I hate to say it to some of you, but didn’t we become friends over commonalities, not politics? Yes, I could have unfriended people as a result of some of the stuff I’ve seen. But I haven’t. I’ve chosen to ignore instead. I’m usually reassured that the day after the election, all of this will go away, but I’m wiser at 33 than I was in my late 20s. It won’t go away.

I was just watching something this morning about Leslie Jones closing up her Twitter account because of the racism thrown at her. Why hate on her? Because she’s successful? Because she has made a career and a name for herself? Because she’s above all the hate that people obviously harbor for others? Because she’s not Kanye West? Because she’s not you?

You people make me sick. All of you who have nothing productive to contribute to normal conversation make me sick. I love the right to free speech as much as anyone else – it gives me the opportunity to write stuff like this. And yes, you have your right too. I’m glad you use it. Really, I am. But as I said, use your words effectively. Use your voice effectively. Act with a shred of the education you obviously have.

And for the sake of humanity, sanitize your posts a little. Stop the cursing. Not everyone wants to see how many times you can drop the f-bomb.

Will I lose friends over something like this? It is possible. And if I do, then I probably never mattered to you anyway. And that’s fine, I wish you well. It will be less hate toward the world that I’ll have to see on Facebook. One less causality of the lack of common sense that I won’t have to put up with, just like you wont’ have to put up with me and my infrequent complaining.

And now that I’ve let off some steam (and angered a few in the process), enjoy the rest of your day.

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Writer, former dancer, geek, nostalgia geek, Secretary by day, daughter, sister/in-law, girlfriend, aunt. Yankees and Giants fan, honorary Avenger (I have a pin, so it is official :-) ), MSTie, and Stargate, Thor, and Hello Kitty collector.
And if you want to know anything about me:
https://allisonveneziowrites.com/about-allison
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